Historically, automatic weapons were intended to be loaded mechanically and, therefore, fired much faster than hand-loaded firearms. However, the rapid firing of successive cartridges induces various side effects that proved detrimental both to accuracy and the effectiveness of an automatic weapon. Traditionally, a gun was considered to work like a heat engine, in which about thirty percent of the energy developed by the propellant powder is dissipated as heat, forty percent as muzzle blast and recoil, and only the remaining thirty percent was effectively used to propel the bullet out of the barrel. Successive designs of automatic weapons tried to make use of the vast amount of wasted energy to help make the automatic cycling operate better. Three general systems were used. Hiram Maxim was the first to use recoil forces to mechanize the ejection and loading actions in a machine gun, Browning put the muzzle blast to effective use, and Bergman devised the simple blowback action. Thus, the three basic ways of obtaining an automatic operation were developed from the use of recoil, gas, or blowback actuation. Later applications of the blowback operation used either simple blowback or assisted blowback, with or without locked, delayed, hesitation or retarded blowback, and even blowback with advance primer ignition. Gas operation leads to the use of long and short-stroke pistons and even, in more modern weapons, direct gas action, where the derived gas directly activates a bolt carrier in which an adequate recess is managed. Recoil operation traditionally provided the locking mechanism of the bolt to the barrel so that they can slide together under the thrust of the pressure when firing, either under a short or long recoil operation and with or without muzzle boosters or recoil intensifiers.
Throughout the time these improvements were made a main issue was safety. Depending on the design, operators were susceptible to explosive forces from an improperly chambered round or an incomplete breech lock on the chambered round. Therefore, all systems were engineered in order to secure an accurate locking duration for the breech to the barrel, until the gas pressure falls to a safe level once the projectile has exited the barrel. The main breech locking systems developed employed separate revolving chambers, the rotation of which provides an adequate duration of protection, or toggle systems, rotating bolts, tilting breech blocks, lug systems, or even non-ramming breech blocks. A common but unsatisfactory feature among all these mechanisms is that they do not prevent the undesirable side effects during automatic firing, which accounts for the adverse effects on accuracy and ease of use.
Thus, the mechanisms found on current firearms, although reliable and widely employed, nevertheless suffer from a number of deficiencies. For example, some mechanisms increase the length of the housing of the breech, resulting in interior clutter and increased weight. The amplitude of recoil is relatively critical due to its effect on accuracy, and the existing mechanisms fail to provide a satisfactory or optimum reduction in recoil, which permits the resulting upward movement of the barrel—muzzle climb or muzzle rise. More particularly, the direction of the recoil forces generally coincides with the longitudinal axis of the gun barrel. The gun barrel is generally located above the shoulder in a person firing a rifle or above the hand in a handgun, and more precisely above the gap between the thumb and index finger of a person firing a handgun. This configuration generates a moment that causes the upward jerking of the gun familiar to every user. Heavy caliber firearms and cannons experience the same upward forces upon firing. For these and other reasons, improvements in the design and operation of small and heavy caliber firearms and cannons are desired in the art.
The innovative approaches taken here make a more effective use of the available energy and, in particular, recycle, as much as practicable, the wasted energy by departing from the traditional and historical mechanisms. In one aspect, this invention provides new solutions, mechanisms, and systems for operating the firing action of a firearm and allows revolutionary changes in the ergonomics applicable to firearm design and use.
Taking into account all these adverse or secondary effects that impede the use of all firearms, and in particular automatic firearms, in which energy is essentially wasted beyond that necessary for propelling the projectile, the present approach is new and innovative. In general and in one aspect, the invention is aimed at addressing the design of a new firearm by taking advantage of available energy to help operate the firearm and consequently minimize and/or compensate for the adverse effects and improve control. A first innovation is the deliberate use and control of energy to address all the adverse effects during operation. This allows one to conceive of a new firearm design and organization, still dependable, but vastly improved. This new approach also allows a firearm designer to address concerns and constraints as part of a whole rather than as individual problems, so as to take into account the advantages and interfaces between firearm components during operation. Considering the operation as a whole, as this invention exemplifies, allows completely new concepts and expands the universe of designs, configurations, and mechanisms possible for firearms.